In software development and some other product development environments, team members huddle together each morning for a stand-up meeting where they review progress and essentially re-plan the project. During the daily meetings, which are called “scrums,” a scrum master asks the team members these three questions that can include: what did you do yesterday; what will you do today; are there any impediments in your way. The scrum master functions to, for example: help the team to reach consensus for what can be achieved during a specific period of time; help the team to reach consensus during the daily scrum; help the team to stay focused and follow the agreed-upon rules for daily scrums; remove obstacles that are impeding the team's progress; and protect the team from outside distractions.
Tracking progress toward completing project tasks, task issues raised by team members, and the contributions by individual team members toward those tasks can be a time consuming process and which can interfere with the ongoing collaboration among team members and impede the free flowing discussions that are considered important to providing a supportive project environment.